Whether you’re a homebrewer or just happen to know one, chances are that you are familiar with something that is known as “spent grains”.
If you weren’t already familiar with them, spent grains are the main bi-product of beer and are often thrown away as waste.
However, what you might not be aware of is that spent grains can actually be used for a whole host of different reasons, and happen to have a pretty high nutritional value!
Over the years, lots of people have come up with a great variety of different ways to utilize their spent grains, including even feeding them to their farm animals.
In recent years, spent grains have even been used more frequently in home recipes. But, what do spent grains taste like, exactly? How can they be prepared?
If you are currently asking yourself this question, then rest assured that you have come to the right place. In this guide, we are going to be talking you through everything you need to know about spent grains.
Just keep on reading!
What Do Spent Grains Taste Like?
So, before we get into the various different ways that you can prepare your spent grains – we’re sure that you’ll be pretty interested in learning a little more about the flavor and texture of spent grains!
Unlike some of the other grains that are commonly used for breakfast foods and home recipes, we think that you might be pretty interested to learn that spent grains often tend to have a strong, distinctive “nutty” flavor that can add a whole new element to your home cooking.
In particular, spent grains are most commonly used to make bread and a variety of otter baked goods.
As for the texture? Well, believe it or not, spent grains are also known for having an extremely lightweight and soft texture that makes them ideal for incorporating into a variety of different recipes.
In fact, besides being ideal for baked goods as we have already mentioned above, spent grains are super versatile and can be easily incorporated into a variety of different home recipes to add an extra dose of fiber, nutrition, and, of course, flavor!
Despite having a great flavor and texture, how can they be prepared? Just keep on reading to learn everything you need to know.
How Can Spent Grains Be Prepared?
Now that we have covered the flavor and texture of spent grains, we’re sure that you’ll now be super interested to learn a little more about the different ways that spent grains can be prepared!
To help give you some inspiration on how you can go about preparing spent grains, let’s take a look at the following:
1. Eat Them Wet
This is by far the most convenient way to enjoy your spent grains. If you are already familiar with home brewing, then we’re sure that you’ll be aware of the brewing process – and this includes getting the spent grains wet.
After they have been made wet, instead of throwing them out as waste – why don’t you consider working with them to add an added dose of fiber and additional nutrients to some of your favorite recipes?
If you would like to use your wet grains, all you will need to do is simply mix the wet grains into recipes such as pancakes, bread, and more.
Top tip: If you want to make sure that your spent grains have a smoother consistency to better complement the food that you are planning on making – then why don’t you consider placing your spent grains in a food processor?
That way, you’ll be able to mix them up a bit more to get a slightly smoother texture than if you were to use them directly after home brewing.
2. Use Spent Grains Dry!
If you happen to have some spent grains that haven’t been used for home brewing, then we’re sure that you’ll keep learning more about how you can prepare and use your spent grains while they are dry.
The good news is that there are many ways that you can use dry spent grains, and one of the best ways this can be achieved is by mixing them into your various home recipes.
Still, in order to make sure that your spent grains are as dry as they can be, we recommend that you place them in an oven prior to cooking with them.
By doing this for a period of around 5-10 minutes, you will help to ensure that your spent grains will be completely and totally dried out and ready for you to then go ahead and use them in your various recipes!
3. Make Bread With Spent Grains
Last but certainly not least, the final way that you can use your spent grains is in order to make fresh bread that will be high in both fiber and nutritional value.
Making bread with spent grains is by far the most popular way to use them, which is the main reason why we have given this point its own section!
Bread made with spent grains has a slightly different texture to regular bread, but we think that you might love it. Not only that, but using your spent grains to make bread will also help to ensure that nothing gets wasted after home brewing.
Impressive or what?
The Bottom Line
There we have it! You’ve made it to the end of the guide.
Now that we have covered everything that you need to know about spent grains, we hope that we have been able to give you a much better understanding of what spent grains taste like, as well as some of the easiest ways that you can prepare them for your own recipes.
Thank you for reading, and goodbye for now!
